October 1 - Mon

The Trinidad and Tobago dollar is the currency of Trinidad and Tobago. It has its origins in the Spanish dollar (also known as "pieces of eight"), which began circulating in the 16th century. The first bank in the territory was the Colonial Bank, which opened a branch in Trinidad in 1837. An 1838 order-in-council by the government designated the pound sterling as the official currency, but dollars issued by various countries remained legal tender. A government ordinance in 1934 named the dollar the official currency, replacing the system of pounds, shillings and pence at a fixed exchange rate of 1 dollar for every 4 shillings 2 pence. Trinidad and Tobago entered a currency union with other Caribbean nations after World War II, which was replaced by the modern Trinidad and Tobago dollar in 1964, two years after the nation's independence.

October 6 - Sat

An automatic watch, also called a self-winding watch, is a mechanical watch in which the natural motion of the wearer provides energy to run the watch, making manual winding unnecessary. The watch contains an oscillating weight that turns on a pivot, which is attached to a ratcheted winding mechanism. The earliest credible evidence for a successful automatic watch is that made by the Swiss watchmaker Abraham-Louis Perrelet in late 1776 or early 1777.Photograph: Petar Milošević

The reverse of the painting features a picture known as Lot and His Daughters, showing a Biblical scene of Lot's flight from Sodom, with a landscape including explosions of fire in the background. Since the two scenes are unrelated, it has been suggested that the paintings are intended as private devotional images, each depicting one example of a just life and God's grace.

October 10 - Wed

Pouteria campechiana, also known as the canistel, is an evergreen tree native to southern Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, and El Salvador. It is cultivated in its native countries and has been introduced into several other countries, including Brazil, Taiwan, and the United States. The edible part of the tree is its fruit, which is colloquially known as an egg fruit. The ripe fruit is used in jam and marmalade, on pancakes, and in a milkshake known as "eggfruit nog".

October 11 - Thu

The Crown of the Andes is a votive crown originally made for a large statue of Mary, the mother of Jesus, in the cathedral of Popayán, Colombia. The oldest parts of the crown are the orb and cross at the top, which date to the 16th century. The diadem was made in approximately 1660, and the arches were added around a century later. The crown is adorned with 450 emeralds. The largest, the "Atahualpa Emerald", may have belonged to the Inca Emperor Atahualpa (1497–1533) and been seized from him when he was captured in 1532 by Francisco Pizarro, a Spanish conquistador. In 1936 the crown was sold by its owners to an American businessman. It is now in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.Crown: Unknown. Photograph: Metropolitan Museum of Art

October 12 - Fri

Thomas Gainsborough (1727–1788) was an English painter. Along with his bitter rival, Sir Joshua Reynolds, he is considered one of the most important British portrait artists of the second half of the 18th century. Born and raised in Sudbury, Suffolk, Gainsborough lived in London during the 1740s, where he trained under engraver Hubert-François Gravelot and contributed to the decoration of Vauxhall Gardens. After marrying Margaret Burr, an illegitimate daughter of the Duke of Beaufort, Gainsborough moved back to Sudbury and then to Ipswich, Bath and London. Gainsborough was a fast painter and worked more from observations of nature than from application of formal academic rules. Despite being a prolific portrait painter, Gainsborough gained greater satisfaction from his landscapes.

October 13 - Sat

The yellow-billed shrike (Corvinella corvina) is a common resident breeding bird in tropical Africa, from Senegal east to Uganda, and locally in westernmost Kenya. It frequents forest and other habitats with trees. Although it generally feeds on insects, this shrike may hunt larger prey such as small frogs and mice.Photograph: Charles J. Sharp

October 16 - Tue

Anti-German sentiment, or Germanophobia, has existed in various places throughout history. This includes 1860s Russia, where a press campaign against Germans was launched; Britain from the 1870s onwards; and across much of the rest of the world during World War I and World War II. In the post-war years the speed of the West German recovery raised fears that the Germans of planning for World War III, but in contemporary Europe Germany is generally viewed favourably. In a poll carried out in 2008 for the BBC World Service, in which people in 34 countries were asked about the positive and negative influence of 13 countries, Germany was the most popular, ahead of Japan, France and Britain.

October 17 - Wed

Study of a Young Woman is a painting by Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer, completed between 1665 and 1667, around the same time as his better-known Girl with a Pearl Earring. The two paintings are similar in tone, composition, and size. Both subjects wear pearl earrings, have scarves draped over their shoulders, and are shown in front of a plain black background. It is likely that the creation of both works involved the use of a camera obscura. The sitter is depicted as having a widely spaced features in a flat face, with a small nose and thin lips. Her lack of conventional beauty has led to a general belief that this work was painted on commission, although it is possible that the model was Vermeer's daughter. The work was probably created as a tronie rather than a portrait, being a study of the young woman's thoughts, feelings, or character, something typical in many of Vermeer's paintings. Study of a Young Woman is now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.Painting: Johannes Vermeer

October 18 - Thu

The Japanese-issued Netherlands Indies gulden was the currency issued by the Japanese Empire when it occupied the Dutch East Indies during World War II. Following the Dutch capitulation in March 1942, the Japanese closed all banks, seized assets and currency, and assumed control of the economy in the territory. They began issuing military banknotes, as had previously been done in other occupied territories. These were printed in Japan, but retained the name of the pre-war currency and replaced the Dutch gulden at par. From 1943 the military banknotes were replaced by identical bank-issued notes printed within the territory, and the currency was renamed the roepiah from 1944. The currency was replaced by the Indonesian rupiah in 1946, one year after the Japanese surrender and the country's independence.

October 19 - Fri

Danaus genutia, also known as the common tiger or striped tiger, is a species of butterfly found throughout India as well as Sri Lanka, Myanmar, South-East Asia and Australia. It is a member of the Danainae group of brush-footed butterflies. Both sexes have tawny wings with veins marked with broad black bands, and the male has a pouch on its hindwing. The butterfly is found in scrub jungles, fallow land adjacent to habitation, and deciduous forests, preferring areas of moderate to heavy rainfall. Its most common food plants in peninsular India are small herbs, twiners and creepers from the family Asclepiadaceae. The caterpillar of D. genutia obtains poison by eating poisonous plants, which make the caterpillar and butterfly taste unpleasant to predators. It has some 16 subspecies and although its evolutionary relationships are not completely resolved, it appears to be most closely related to the Malay tiger (D. affinis) and the white tiger.Photograph: Vengolis

October 21 - Sun

Lençóis Maranhenses National Park (Parque Nacional dos Lençóis Maranhenses) is a national park located in Maranhão state, in northeastern Brazil, just east of the Baía de São José. Protected since June 1981, the 383,000-acre (155,000 ha) park includes 70 km (43 mi) of coastline, and an interior of rolling sand dunes. During the rainy season, the valleys among the dunes fill with freshwater lagoons, prevented from draining due to the impermeable rock beneath. The park is home to a range of species, including four listed as endangered, and has become a popular destination for ecotourists.Photograph: Julius Dadalti

October 24 - Wed

Jellyfish is an informal term used for members of the subphylum Medusozoa and similar animals such as those in the phylum Ctenophora. Jellyfish are mainly free-swimming marine animals with umbrella-shaped bells and trailing tentacles, although a few are not mobile. They move by pulsating the bell. Their tentacles are armed with stinging cells and may be used to capture prey and defend against predators. Jellyfish are found all over the world, from surface waters to the deep sea.

October 25 - Thu

The A591 is a major road in the English county of Cumbria, which lies almost entirely within the Lake District national park. The road starts at a roundabout with the A590 close to Sizergh Castle and runs generally north west, bypassing the towns of Kendal and Keswick, ending on the A595 near Bothel. A 2009 poll by satellite navigation firm Garmin named the stretch of the road between Windermere and Keswick as the most popular road in Britain. The A591 was badly damaged during Storm Desmond in 2015, with part of the road washed away at Dunmail Raise, and had to be closed for five months. While it was closed a new trail for walkers, cyclists, and horseriders was built to the west of the road.Photograph: Diliff.

October 26 - Fri

The Hunting of the Snark, published in 1876, is a poem by Lewis Carroll, telling the story of ten individuals who cross the ocean to hunt the Snark. In common with other Carroll works, the meaning of the poem has been queried and analysed in depth. It is divided into eight "fits" (a pun on the archaic fitt meaning a part of a song, and fit meaning a convulsion).

This picture is Plate 9 of Henry Holiday's illustrations for the first edition of the poem. It illustrates the seventh fit, The Banker's Fate. The Banker is sitting in a chair and holding bone castanets.Illustration: Henry Holiday. Restoration: Adam Cuerden

October 30 - Tue

The Bolshoi Theatre is a historic theatre in Moscow, Russia, which holds ballet and opera performances. The company was founded on 28 March [O.S. 17 March] 1776, when Catherine the Great granted Prince Pyotr Urusov a licence to organise theatrical performances, balls and other forms of entertainment. Usunov set up the theatre in collaboration with English tightrope walker Michael Maddox. The present building was built between 1821 and 1824 and designed by architect Joseph Bové.Photograph: DmitriyGuryanov

October 31 - Wed

Christopher Columbus (1451–1506) was an Italian explorer, navigator, and colonist who completed four voyages across the Atlantic Ocean under the auspices of the Catholic monarchs of Spain. His early life is somewhat obscure, but scholars generally agree that he was born in the Republic of Genoa and travelled widely at a young age, reaching northern Europe and west Africa. From 1492 he led the first European expeditions to the Caribbean, Central America, and South America, leading to the systematic European colonization of the Americas. Widely venerated for centuries after his death, his legacy is now debated: public perceptions have changed as recent scholars have given attention to negative aspects of his life such as his role in the extinction of the Taíno people and his promotion of slavery.